VirtualBox – The Best Virtual Machine for Windows
Testing has been a daily habit of my life, since I test a lot of software I do not test them on my live OS (which is Vista SP2 beta), I rely on Virtual Machines to do all the testing and to check out new OS without any harm to my OS or partition.
There are three leading Virtual Machine Software, form three software giants in the IT industry. Below are the three products.
- Virtual PC 2007 (from Microsoft)
- VMware Workstation (from VMware)
- VirtualBox (from SUN Microsystems)
Here is a short comparison of the three in terms of few aspects I could come up with:
|
Comparison Factor |
Virtual PC 2007 |
Virtual Box |
VMware |
| Price | FREE | FREE | USD 189.00 |
| Host Support (Operating System where VM will be installed) | Windows Vista Only (XP and older versions require Virtual PC 2004) | Windows Vista, XP, 2000 Sun Solaris Linux Mac OSX |
Windows Vista, XP, 2000 Linux |
| Guest Support (Operating System which will be installed on the VM) | Only Different Versions of Microsoft Windows. | Different Versions of Microsoft Windows Linux Solaris Unix Mac OSX |
Different Versions of Microsoft Windows Linux Mac OSX |
| Virtual Machine Addons (Drivers for better performance of Guest OS) Interacts between Guest and Host | Available | Available | Available |
| Performance (out of 5) | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| ISO Capture | Available | Available | Available |
| Direct USB Support | Not Available | Available | Not Available |
| Drag and Drop Files | Not Available | Available | Available |
| Networking | Available but does not work with the host. | Available and works perfectly. | Available but sometimes throws’ errors. |
| Management Console User Friendliness (out of 5) | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| Virtual Disk Management | Easy | Very Easy | Hard |
| Overall Rating (out of 10 where 1 being worst and 10 being best) |
5 |
9 |
7 |
The Verdict
After 2 weeks of testing, I have come to the below conclusions.
VMware is quite good but not worth all the money, not worth at all.
Virtual PC 2007 is ok but I have got tired of it due to the lack of features, especially the networking problem and the lack of USB support and the support to install a variety of guest OS. I have switched to VirtualBox.
This I believe is the new king of Virtual Machines, and it has features and performance better than the paid Virtual Machines.
View some VirtualBox screen shots
Hi, I wonder why you wrote that VPC 2007 will work only on Vista Systems. I have VPC 2007 installed on Windows XP SP2.
What do you think about the free emulator qemu which is very fast but has no gui?
on November 15, 2008
yes Virtual pc 2007 does work on XP now…earlier it did not and networking is very easy in virtual pc once you get the hang of it
on November 15, 2008
Virtualbox is the best vm imho.
It blows vmware away.
on November 16, 2008
Though I’m new to virtualization, and I do agree that at present, Virtualbox is better than the other two, I do find some of your conclusions questionable. One might even say inaccurate. For example, Virtual PC 2007 DOES support file drag and drop; I have no problem networking with the HOST operating system, and I am presently running Virtual PC 2007 on Windows XP PRO SP3.
Like I said, I prefer Virtualbox, however a comparison should report facts only.
on February 3, 2009
Yes, Virtual PC 2007 does support drag and drop between host and guest and vise versa. On the other hand, VirtualBox does NOT support that function even in the latest version which at the moment of writing this post is 2.1.4.
Please post facts and not try to make a software look better by posting inaccurate information.
on February 18, 2009
Yes Mark and Ekun are correct about that. VPC 2007 DOES support drag and drop when VPC addons are installed and virtual box doesn’t.
And networking has no problems either
However i think you are using the final version of VPC 2007, I was talking about the version when vista was released(VPC 2007 beta). It was released because VPC 2004 did not support vista as a guest or host O/S. (this version was buggy with XP SP2 and didn’t install in some machines also had trouble with some processors), which was later improved with the final version.
changes in that version was
Support for hardware virtualization
Support for Windows Vista as a host operating system
Support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system
Support for 64-bit host operating systems(with VM’s being 32-bit)
Support for ISO images larger than 2GB
but still I find VPC easier to work with
on February 18, 2009
on February 18, 2009
Thanks for doing this comparison, saves me a lot of trouble downloading and trying one by one. Now I am of to download VirtualBox!
on May 6, 2009
I’ve tried windows virtual pc and vmware and virtual box. vmware was sluggish and slow a little and didn’t like that feeling. Same with virtual pc but I kept virtual box because it’s fast and operates like as if you really installed on boot section of your laptop or pc. Thumbs up big time for virtual box.
on July 11, 2009
Iv tried VPC2007 but found networking host vista and XP SP2 guest problematic. However Virtualbox does not pick up my XP machine and do the networking properly. I’m stuck!
on July 28, 2009
Go virtualbox go.
on November 6, 2009
well but microsoft virtual pc has better integration.that is why i liked it more than Virtualbox.
Vmware has the best integration with hardware but much memory usage.
so for me. Microsft Virtual PC is the best
on November 8, 2009
@Meena Bassem: Well Microsoft Virtual PC is good but like mose MS apss its not that good in supporting other OS.
Since Virtual box is Sun it does support other OS like Linux to the maximum.
on November 9, 2009
there is only one thing that made me like Microsfot virtual pc more than Virtualbox.I can simply drag files from and into the Vm.
i couldn’t do that in Virtualbox. that is all fro me.
on November 9, 2009
I am not sure.. May be I have a bad setting .. I have 4 GB ram but Virtual PC has detected only 1.5 GB !!!! May be due to that the virtual PC was slower than VM ….
on November 19, 2009
@Arun: No that is because Virtual PC only uses that amount you cant set the full amt of ram to the OS, otherwise how do you propose to use your OS.
on November 19, 2009
Was the Drag and Drop Files aspect of VirtualBox really available? How it is done? Can u really do that from Host to Guest VM? thanks for the reply.
on December 8, 2009
Virtual Box is the best software for virtualization. I am using virtual box for almost 12 months. It’s GUI is very easy to understand. I am writing this comment from guest os Windows Xp SP2 installed in virtual box….
on February 18, 2010
i just installed virtual box and contrary to your comparison it does not suport direct usb connection.i have windows xp professional as a guest on vista and i’ve been trying to change the settings to detect my external hard drives on the guest.could anyone please help me solve this problem
on February 20, 2010